Dynamic Group Cognitive Coordination through Wearable Tech

A surprising ‘new functionality’ enabler of smartwatches and wearable tech is not just getting real-time alerts and notifications to a single user as the front-end of the seamless connected computing world, but group coordination. Real-time group coordination could foster a whole new class of wearable applications, for a wide range of ‘serious’ and ‘fun’ uses in both large and small groups.

35 teams presented at the Apple WatchKit Hackathon at Silicon Valley’s Hacker Dojo on Sunday November 23, 2014. Many interesting apps were shown, mostly for only a single smartwatch like MoodyBaby, NowCash, MedAlert, ItsRaining, LoveTap, and ScrollforSushi.

Best Tech was won by this author’s own team project for WatchSet: a multi-player social gaming app for smartwatch wearers in proximity to self-discover and play interactive games (Figure 1).

Figure 1: WatchSet Multi-player Social Gaming App for Smartwatch.

Large-scale Dynamic Cognitive Coordination
The level of where we are starting to operate now with technology is automating lower-level cognitive tasks. Linking any and all data streams on-demand in the connected computing world is allowing us to conceive of automation in new ways - as both mechanical task relief and cognitive processing offload. This suggests that we may be able to shift the whole way we interact with the world, and organize human activity in new and dynamically coordinated ways, that are potentially at a much larger scale than has been possible previously.